The World According to Mitch Fanning

Do you consume and produce content as either reader, blogger, author, or entrepreneur?

If so, this post may interest you…

(more…)

Today was Day 1 of Mesh 2011, “Canada’s Web Conference” at The Allstream Centre in Toronto, Canada.

Kent Wakely, my colleague and founder of Fruition Interactive wrote up a nice summary on a session called: How Adult Entertainment is Reshaping the Internet – and vice versa with Allison Vivas, Peter Nowak & Patchen Barss.

Regardless of how you feel about porn, the industry has long been at the leading edge of the technology curve. It was one of the first to embrace the VCR, it was one of the first to extensively use digital media.

Enter Kent Wakely.

Read the full article here.

About the Author

Mitch Fanning is VP of Strategy & Business Development for Fruition Interactive (Toronto, Canada). He’s spent 11 years working with businesses of all sizes, from global brands to some of Canada’s fastest growing web start-ups ranked in the PROFIT 100.

Photo credit: Mesh Conference

Recently, I had a great conversation with Baron Manett and Richard Marcil of Ariad Custom Communications on branded content, social media, and emerging industry trends.

Baron’s notable career spans the worlds of digital, branded-entertainment, and experiential marketing.  While, Richard’s track record for business building spans from Silicon Valley startups to global powerhouses like Johnson & Johnson.

Needless to say, the conversation got me thinking about what the ‘agency model’ of the future might look like.

What amazes me is that agencies are still having the internal discussion about how they should ‘sell’ digital or social to either their clients or staff.  Yet both use digital and social channels to find useful information and make decisions.

As the digital and social landscape rapidly increases businesses (including marketing agencies) need to rethink how they do business by adopting a ‘social media publishing model’ for themselves.  They (not just their clients) need to become ‘social publishers’.

Adopting a Social Publishing Model

Agencies can start the process by identifying the blogs, social media niche sites, online portals and forums, and any other place where their clients (readers) hang out.  Next, they might consider recruiting key content creators (bloggers and subject experts) around the marketing world to align with their publishing brand.

Most importantly, however, agencies must change the way they think about content output.  They need to start delivering content through multiple outputs and creators – tweets, photos, podcasts, content packages, etc.  Instead of one output, there might be 5, 10, or even 20 pieces of content being created by multiple people at the same time.

If the content is useful and compelling, prospects (and clients) will start to reply on the agency as an industry ‘thought-leader’ and begin a relationship with them by consuming their content.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will this transformation.  It will take effort, patience, and time.  Here are the crucial 3 steps to begin with:

1. Recruit an internal champion

This social media publishing plan won’t just happen.  You need an internal driver.  Find someone as your social media champion (someone with real passion for using social media). This person will be your lead trainer and evangelist.

2. Create content rock stars

Take your employees (all your employees, not just your editorial staff) and turn them into content creators. Set up the tools for each of your employees and develop a social media policy that will help employees tell your brand story as well as your clients?

Train each employee how to write effectively for the web and share their experiences through social media. Currently, most organizations have just a few key content creators.  What if your entire agency told your brand story?

3. Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

Too many companies reinvent the ‘content wheel’ for every content outpost they maintain. A better approach is to create a content ecosystem that allows you to repurpose and cascade your best information.

The key to repurposing content is to is organize your content rungs.  I love the concept Jay Baer of Convince and Convert coined, “Content Ladder.”

For example, let’s assume you have a Blog, Facebook fan page, Twitter account, and email newsletter (yes, they still exist).  To create an efficient ‘ladder’, you must determine publishing schedules for each of these content outputs. Ordered from most frequent publication to least your program could be:

• Twitter (10x/day)
• Facebook (3x/day)
• Blog (2x/week)
• Email (1x/week)

Example

In my case, I create a piece of content and post it to the first rung in the ladder (Twitter) and track it’s popularity with Hootsuite to see how popular that specific piece of content was with my audience.

The content pieces that were most successful on Twitter should be appropriately tweaked, redeployed, and tested on the second rung of your ladder (Facebook).

Test and track content success on Facebook using your URL shortner (or the number of likes and comments it receives), and add the most effective content pieces to the next rung on the ladder (your blog).

If a piece of content is successful on your blog (measured by visits as determined by Google Analytics, perhaps), add it to the next rung – your email newsletter.

Note:  Sometimes I take a blog post that was popular and repurpose it the other way (Blog, Facebook, Twitter).

What steps have you taken to adopt a ‘Social Publishing Model’ for either your business or agency?

About the Author:

Mitch Fanning is an “available-for-hire” online marketing and social media practitioner.  He runs three6media, a “new marketing” publishing and consulting firm that advises small to mid-sized businesses how to use content marketing and social media to encourage members of their target audience to become advocates and join their tribe of loyal repeat customers.

He’s spent 10+ years ( and put in his 10,000 hours ) working with businesses of all sizes, from global brand (NBC.com, Nestle) to Canada’s fastest growing Internet companies ranked in the PROFIT 100, creating, selling, implementing both traditional and digital marketing opt-in strategies.

Click here to contact Mitch directly.  Or skip right through the garden and grab Mitch’s RSS Feed right here.

My thanks to Henry Blodget (@hblodget) at Business Insider for posting this video.

Here’s what Austin, TX, looked like last week when the early adopters came to town for SXSW:

I’m current researching how businesses are successfully using location-based marketing. Would love to hear your ideas!

We live in exciting times.

The social media revolution we’re experiencing on a daily basis gives the entrepreneur, marketer, job seeker, product designer, inventor, creator, author, musician, and yes…even you…the ability to express an idea, connect with others, inspire a community, and perhaps even change the world.

Right now most of you are thinking, “okay Mitch, you’ve had way too much coffee,” and while that may be true (about 3 cups so far) the point I want to drive home is – for the first time in history we’re seeing both individuals and micro-entrepreneurs utilize social media to land their dream job, build a global following, build their personal brand, and create something that is bigger than themselves, their product or service.

Of course, this can’t always happen overnight.  We’ve all probably heard (and experienced) Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 Hour Rule”, claiming the key to success in any field is a matter of practicing a specific activity for a total of around 10,000 hours (or about 20 hours per week for 10 years).

That being said, the following four individuals have demonstrated that once you’ve found your “voice” and who you want to “serve” you can unleash your passion onto the world using an arsenal of free online channels to both achieve your goals and empower others. Some of you may not agree with their motives (or even like them) and that’s okay.  However, perhaps we can agree that if it weren’t for social media their achievements may not have been achieved or at least materialized so quickly.

Laura Gainor: Utilizing social media to land her dream job

“Life is about taking risks” – Laura Gainor

After deciding to move from Charlotte to Milwaukee, Laura Gainor launched a personal social media campaign using Twitter, YouTube, and SquarePik (an iPhone app allowing you to add a photo with each Foursquare post) as a means to reach out and begin communicating with @cometbranding who was, at the time, looking for a PR and Social Media Strategist.  She landed the job.

How she did it

Laura put the Comet Branding logo on a large poster and took a YouTube video (see below) to kick off her #LauraGainorToMilwaukee campaign.  When her and her husband left for Milwaukee the next day to find a place to live she brought the poster and took photos of the logo at each venue she checked in at through SquarePik and Foursquare. Throughout the process she strategically tweeted to @cometbranding to notify them of each check-in, hoping to get their attention.

After returning to Charlotte, she created a non-traditional presentation (see below) that showcased her social media efforts and posted it to Slideshare. The reaction was incredible! Within 36 hours the Slideshare presentation had reached over 1,000 views.  She was gaining more Twitter followers and people were contacting her letting her know how much she inspired them or wanted to share her story with other job seekers.

Following the community responses, Comet Branding contacted her to setup a Skype interview from Charlotte. On March 1^st she arrived in Milwaukee and went to their office to have a second interview and was immediately offered the position!

Tim Ferriss:  Create a global following with less than $10,000

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

Whether or not you agree with his business practices or life philosophies, Tim Ferriss has proven himself to be a master when it comes to online self-promotion and testing assumptions to get optimal results.  His results speak for themselves – his book, The 4-Hour Workweek has been a  #1 bestseller for over 2 1/2 years, has had over 40 printings, and has been sold in 35 languages.

Back in December 2006, after signing a book deal for the 4HWW, Tim realized he had no real marketing plan.  With very little budget and the knowledge that most books fail and those that reach the bestselling list fall off after 2 weeks, he decided to focus his activities online via cultivating relationships with 5-10 tech bloggers who were recognized as thought-leaders by the majority of “earlyvangelists” (20-35 tech savvy males – his initial target audience).

Below is his keynote with power point slides, which reveals how he started a global phenomenon with less than 10K.  Please keep in mind, Tim did spend money to promote his book, but a lot of what he did can be done online for free.

How he did it

1. The Law of the Few: Rather than target all the “high-traffic” blogs he focused on the few influential “thought-leaders” who are read by the majority (20-35 tech-savvy males).  For more on this concept read 1,000 True Fans or even the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

2. Offer a Movement or Cause: Not an easy task. Tim created the phrase or category of “lifestyle design”, which has inspired a subculture of people who have abandoned the “deferred-life plan” to create their ideal lifestyle in the present.

3. Front-Load Your Promotional Activities: Instead of executing a typical 4-8 week promotional campaign, Tim executed most of his promotional activities within the first week.  He was unavoidable for the first week, which resulted in a few key influencers taking notice (Merlin Mann, @scobelizer, @steverubel), which took the book viral.

4. Nurture Your Community: Tim created the 4HWW forum, but also encouraged people to build their own niche communities around the idea of “lifestyle design” using Ning and Facebook (i.e. Lifestyle design for programmers, moms, etc.)

5. Data is King: From book title, to wording, to post time, to read time – test it all using online tools that are free or cost very little (i.e. Google Adwords, Crazyegg).  For example, Tim found the best time to post to his blog was Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday 10am ET or 9pm ET.

6. SEO: Off-page factors (link-building) played a big role in Tim’s strategy more so than on-page.  Specifically, his ability (by doing all of the above) to have others create links back to either his blog or amazon page.

Listen to the keynote: To advance slides on the presentation, just hover the mouse over the right-hand side of the displayed slide and click when a hand appears.

Ferriss – Le Web 2

Julia Allison: Discover a niche, position yourself at its choke point, get noticed, and build a loyal army.

“Technology gives us direct power over our own brand.” – Julia Allison

Some might remember Julia Allison from the controversial Wired article back in July 2008.  In addition to being a “personal branding machine”, Julia is also a weekly columnist in Time Out New York and co-creator of lifecasting portal NonSociety.com.

Allison is not famous by the traditional definition, but to a devoted group of niche online followers she is a celebrity.  At the time the Wired article came out, she claimed more than 10,000 people read her blog daily, and gossip sites like Gawker, Radar Online, and Valleywag that detail her every exploit. Most importantly, however, is that she’s done this on her own and on the cheap.

How she did it

1. Stand out from the crowd – be the “condom fairy”

Julia got her first big break in 2006 after showing up to a Manhattan Halloween party dressed as a “condom fairy”.  Her online celebrity status, however, didn’t happen overnight.

It started back in the fall of 2002, as a junior at Georgetown University, Allison decided she had a thing for medical students.  So she got a job at the medical school library, where she had the opportunity to meet med students and date several of its members. Before long, she was getting invited to med student parties.

Allison moved to New York in late 2004 with her sights on breaking into the Manhattan media world by using the same strategy she used at Georgetown University – Discover a niche, position herself at its choke point, stay there until people start to notice, and build an army of followers.

In Manhattan, that choke point was Gawker, a media-gossip site that pulls in millions of readers every month, many of them fellow journalists. It was the equivalent of the med school library — the place where Allison would be seen by everyone in her target audience.

2. Engage your fans – fuel the fire

Allison’s greatest accomplishment isn’t just the amount of online content she can create on Twitter, etc.; it’s in her ability to get people to actually care about it. Her trick is to think of herself as the subject of a magazine profile, with every post or update adding dimensions to her as a character. “I treat it like a fire, you have to add logs, or it’ll be like one of those YouTube videos that flame out.”

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2

In July 2007, having conquered the Manhattan media scene, Allison set her sights on a new target: the Silicon Valley startup world. In a flashback to her Gawker breakthrough, she flew to the Bay Area to attend the annual TechCrunch party thrown by influential blogger Michael Arrington.

Allison made an immediate impression among the “techies” in attendance. The next day, Arrington posted a video on his site of Allison cooing for the camera, telling her audience that she had a thing for geeks, and urging them to call her.  Soon Allison had become a Valleywag staple, befriended the likes of CNET’s Caroline McCarthy and Sequoia Capital’s Mark Kvamme.

Gary Vaynerchuk – Changing the Wine World one Tweet at a Time

Gary Vaynerchuk helped grow his family wine business from $4 million to $50 million through the use of social media. He is also author of Crush It! a short book detailing how he uses social media and that anyone can do this.

In February 2006, Gary Vaynerchuk launched Wine Library TV, a daily video blog about wine. With the tag line “changing the wine world,” the show offers an unpretentious approach to an historically stuffy subject. Wine Library TV garners 90,000 daily viewers and has now surpassed 800 episodes, featuring celebrity guests including hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and Digg.com founder Kevin Rose, to name a few.

How he did it

While developing the audience for Wine Library TV, Gary turned to the social web. Gary joined the online conversation by becoming an active member of blogs and forums, and then proceeded to utilize web 2.0 tools such as Facebook and Twitter to connect with consumers online. The business world took note of Gary’s approach, and before long he was being invited to speak at conferences and corporations around the world.

What are you waiting for?

The above examples only scratch the surface.  There are many more – these are just a few. The important thing to remember is their results can be duplicated.  You really have no excuse…you don’t need a lot of money to start, you don’t always need to have skill (in the traditional sense), and you are certainly not required to be on the “most sexiest list” to find your passion, build your personal brand, add value to the online conversation, and empower others.

Ask anyone who has achieved any success and they’ll most likely tell you most of their success is a direct result of being part of a community – be it online or face-to-face (or both!).  It will take some time, but remember, doing the unthinkable is easier than you think.

Start today.

Question – How are you (or someone you know) using social media to empower others?  Let me know at #empowerothers